Samuel Trinity, or plain Sam, was a chemical scientist of exceptional ability. At the age of thirty he was at the height of his career. Already the scientific community recognised his name and associated it with research into medication to relieve certain aging problems of a debilitating nature. He was not married and so far had formed no close attachments to any member of the opposite sex. He claimed, when his mother took him to task on this sensitive matter, that he was just too busy. It was not that he was not good looking—he was. Tall well built, reasonably fit, he surveyed the world through startlingly blue eyes in a face that always wanted to smile, and often did. Sam loved his life, his life was his work and he loved his work.
So far he had been lucky enough to have been in charge of a successful set of trials which proved the efficacy of a certain combination of complex chemicals in preventing a type of epileptic event. For this work he was nominated for the highest honour that the chemical fraternity awarded the prestigious `Atom Award’.
His free time, which was scarce, was often spent in walking the great outdoors. He was particularly fond of the English Lake District and would climb into his little red sports car on a Friday evening and shoot up north complete with boots and in the winter crampons and ice axe.
He was contented with his lot.
Now Sam had effectively completed his current project and was retained by the team for consultation purposes which only occupied a small part of his time, leaving him free to explore other options.
Vulnerable? I’ll say he was.
* * *
It was on one of Sam’s visits to the Lakes that it happened. The day was fine and warm with no sign of rain and he had chosen a route which took him along the high level roman road of High Street in the Eastern Lakes.
Some distance along he stumbled on a boy huddled out of the light breeze and leaning against a wall. Time for a cuppa and a bite he thought and sat down by the side of the lad. It was only then that he realised that all was not well. The boy’s face was creased in pain and he seemed unable to move. In reply to Sam’s questions it appeared that he was suffering some kind of seizure, and was unable to continue. He looked gratefully at Sam who used his phone to obtain help.
The boy was extremely thankful for some sympathetic company and told Sam that his co-walkers had simply left him to fend for himself in the belief that he was shamming.
The helicopter was soon on the spot and the team made room for Sam as well as the boy.
Later Sam played down the rescue by telling the press that it was all in the day’s work, anyone would have done the same.
Sam was booked in for the night at a local B & B and so decided to stay with the boy to find out what the problem was.
It turned out to be a newly identified brain disorder for which there was as yet no known cure or even drugs to relieve the symptoms.
He decided then and there that this would be his next challenge, and began to think who he might be able to supply the necessary funding.
It was a matter of fate that when he returned home he found that there was a conference on this very problem due to take place in Paris in a few day’s time. He got himself invited and on such decisions both good and bad future events would hang in the balance.
It happened in Paris!
Dear reader, you will no doubt be ahead of me.
She was both intelligent and very, very attractive.
With curly blond hair, sparkling grey eyes and an almost permanent expression of pleasure. Sam stood no chance.
And she was bright—very bright—and formidably ambitious.
This latter aspect of her character she had learned to hide—it put people off.
And this was Paris.
Poor Sam.
He fell.
Of coarse he fell. He did not stand the slightest chance.
One interested glance from those mesmerising eyes and he was hers.
There is no need to describe their actions when alone, we can use our imagination.
Sufficient to say they arrived at the conference as individuals and returned as a couple.
But—
He was playing with a time bomb.
A problem arose almost immediately they returned. As they each were paid by different companies they both wanted to be the one to succeed with the research. The conference had identified two quite different approaches to the research. Natalie Ryan as she was called had done some exploratory work on the problem previously and this had indicated that one method, called the Lost Nucleus was much more likely to succeed over the other, the Nerve Cell Repair approach.
Natalie’s ambition came to the fore and pretending that she would prefer Sam to win she advised him to take the poorer option whilst she ran all the way to success with the other.
At the same time she pretended that their relationship was going places, and spent as much time as possible with Sam. However much of the time spent together was taken up with the problem they were both working on, and in this the girl was ever so gently pumping the lad of all the data that she needed, she nevertheless told him blatant lies as to what she was up to, and what progress her team were making.
As the work continued it began to look more and more that Natalie’s approach was going to bear fruit, whereas Sam’s experiments were not repeatable.
Sam was in despair.
His work was not looking good.
He came to rely more and more on Natalie to keep him going and to provide that love in which he was now totally embroiled.
As for the girl her plans were all coming to a successful conclusion. Sam told her what his team were up to with Natalie constantly telling him that he would succeed when all the time believing that he would fail.
Poor Sam was in despair.
It looked as if the girl was the winner, and she had Sam exactly where she wanted him.
Then both projects went into one of those phases where a long time was being spent verifying previous results. Much was hanging on these final results which could therefore not be hurried.
Natalie was radiant, she had both the good product and the boy in the palm of her hand.
Sam was an unhappy chemist. He wanted so much to impress the girl and it looked that in this he would fail.
However fate was about to play something of a game.
* * *
The time came when the results of both trials were in and it was a shock for both teams and their leaders Sam and Natalie.
Sam’s team had succeeded in everything they had set out to achieve. Confirmed by an independent body they had a viable product. Sam was enormously proud.
But what of Natalie?
Well the early results could not be repeated, and inspection discovered that it could never work. The previous figures from the original tests had been over optimistic.
And what of their relationship?
The phone call congratulating him from Natalie never came. She never answered his phone calls. An embarrassed mother told him that she had gone abroad for a good long holiday—her mother did not know where she was and was waiting for Natalie to ring and tell her.
Sam did not succeed in contacting her.
It was several weeks later that she turned up at home with the announcement that she was engaged to an Italian Count, and was planning to live in Italy.
There was some compensation for Sam in that his success brought a product to market which was very successful. It was prescribed for the lad Sam had rescued in the Lakes and it was an effective cure for his problem.
Sam is still un-married much to the annoyance of his doting mother.
JML
17/8/2011